Rick Perlstein

A political tendency that relies on esoteric pope figure to interpret the actuality of plain reality is not in a good position to win the loyalty of a nation. It is, instead, a cult.

I was honored to be able to discuss the first month of Obama's term Friday on the Rachel Maddow show.

[I wrote this post for TPMCafe's discussion of Will Bunch's fine book "Tear Down This Myth" but lost the instructions on how to post to TPM, so while I await them I'll bank the post for you folks here]

Last night I debated Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review at Northwestern University on the proposition, "Resolved: The hour of conservatism has passed." I argued that conservatives these days seem more pathetic than dangerous. I cut them a break. It was a curious evening, right from the beginning.

Out in Washington, most of my Campaign for America's Future colleagues are at a great CAF-sponsored conference on "Thinking Big, Thinking Forward"—about how to achieve the kind of ideas for the economy that we need, not the ideas Susan Collins and Ben Nelson will support.

Please, please, please excuse my French. But ABC News today ran a story that felt to me like they were saying: "N****r gets to ride in a free limousine."

That, at this do or die moment of peril for our economy, is what the religious right would prefer to focus on. From a Focus on the Family email soliciting volunteers to call senators to oppose the nomination of David Ogden for deputy attorney general:

From The Politico, on a recent Republican retreat: